#animalhearted

“Three Wolverines of Rushing Valley” by Edor Burman and illustrated by Harald Wiberg

......

Your whole human life was just one long wolf nap.

Years of species dysphoria and hatred towards your human body just for it to not be real.

The joy you feel is unimaginable.

(for @skylargoesbark alterhuman new years posts!)

i know a lot of folks tend to think of otherhearted as “just having a connection”, or like the lesser version of kin, and it will never not get on my nerves when i see someone (trying to correct someone else) say “therian/kin isn’t a connection!! if you just have a connection, that’s just otherhearted!!” or something similar.

it’s the word ‘just’ that always gets me. it’s just a connection. it’s not kin; it’s just otherhearted.

it feels reductive. it feels like dumbing down what it truly means to be otherhearted.

personally my hearttypes aren’t just anything. they’re a whole slew of complexities and emotions that are integral to who i am as a being. they make me who i am, and i wouldn’t be the same without them.

and i know people tend to think it’s not a big deal, and even if i were to say “imagine if someone said ‘it’s just a kintype’ about one of your kintypes”, many of you probably wouldn’t care. but my issue is that to otherhearted creatures, specifically, it happens over and over and over again. and if i ever point it out, suggest a correction, i sometimes get dogpiled on as if im the bad guy; op didnt mean it that way, dogbite, don’t be so sensitive. you’re overreacting.

but i suppose that’s the problem, isn’t it? that they didn’t mean to. that reducing our identity in such a way is so common, so familiar that people don’t even think about it when they do it. that in their subconscious, otherheart will only ever be “just a connection”, and nothing more. even if they don’t mean it that way. it still stings a little even if it wasn’t intentional.

We've seen some posts around like this for other subsections of the community, so we figured we'd make a 'heartedness one. This isn’t extensive, nor does it cover the entirety of the hearted experience–but it should serve as a general rundown of the community. This post has a PDF version that's going to be archived on our Neocities.

Terminology

Otherhearted:  – Synonyms: “Otherkith”A person with a strong connection to a species, character or other entity, usually defined by identifying "with", but not "as". More on what exactly this means later.

Concepthearted: A person whose otherhearted identity relates to concepts. (Emotionhearted, songhearted, timehearted, etc).

Facthearted: A person whose otherhearted identity relates to real, this-world people, places or individual animals. (Hearttypes including specific oceans, public figures/celebrities, specific animals, etc).

Fictionhearted: A person whose otherhearted identity relates to fictional characters, species or places. (Nightfuryhearted, Mariohearted, etc).

Planthearted: A person whose otherhearted identity relates to plants. (Treehearted, sunflowerhearted, etc).

Theriohearted: – Synonyms: “Animalhearted” A person whose otherhearted identity relates to animals. (Wolfhearted, bearhearted, etc).

Hearttype: – Synonyms: “Kithtype”, debatably “Synpath”The entity that an otherhearted individual identifies with.

–hearted: A suffix used to denote your specific hearttype. For example, a person whose hearttype is wolves would be wolfhearted.

Hearthome: A hearthome is a place–be it real or fictional–that a person has a deep connection with, often to the point of considering it a “home” regardless of if they’ve never been there in their current life/body.

Synpath: A thing someone identifies with and not as, used similarly to "hearttype", though there's nuances separating the two terms depending on who you ask.

Symbols

The otherhearted symbol or diamond heart was proposed by tumblr user aestherians in 2017, chosen by the community using a poll. The design features a ring interlocking with a heart, which converges into a diamond shape in the middle.

What Does It Really Mean?

“Identifying With”

“Identifying with” is a broad category that’s understandably, quite confusing. This explanation aims to make it a little more understandable, but this absolutely doesn’t cover the entirety of what “identifying with” can mean. “It” in the following points refers to a hearttype or potential hearttype, whatever that may be.

You feel like you “should have” been it, but you aren’t.

You feel like you “could have” been it, but you aren’t.

It is a part of you even if it’s not entirely “you”.

You feel like you will be it in a future life.

You believe that in another life, you are/have been it, but right now you’re not.

Your sense of self wouldn’t be the same without it as a part of your life.

It’s your ideal self, or a representation of it.

You feel at home around it or imagining being around it.

It’s the form of your daemon.

You believe it’s a parallel life of yours, but you’re not it right now.

It influences your identity in some way.

It’s a special interest or hyperfixation that feels tied to your sense of self.

You feel like it is a part of the same family as you.

You feel like it is, in a way, kind of almost you, but a little “to the left”--too distinct to be you in a literal sense.

You feel like you belong with it, but you’re not literally one of them.

It is a part of your identity in some way other than you being literally them.

A lot of the above points relate in similar ways to hearthome identities, but reworded to incorporate “it” as a place instead. Additional points for hearthomes include:

Feeling like you should be there.

Feeling like you were there once, and it’s left a mark on your identity.

That place holding a special place within your identity.

Feeling a “pull” toward that place.

FAQ:

How is this different from otherkin/therians?

A therian/otherkin identifies as their kintype, whereas an otherhearted person doesn’t, and will have a different type of connection to them. Think of the difference as “I am [kintype]” vs “[hearttype] is a part of my identity”. However, there’s plenty of nuance, grey areas between them, and these identities can even shift and become each other over time, so this is a general statement not accounting for those nuances.

Both things are still alterhuman, and no identity is “lesser” than the other–hearttypes can have just as much influence over a person’s identity as kintypes can.

Can hearttypes be chosen/voluntary?

Yes! There’s a divide between otherkin and otherlinkers in this way, but this hasn’t ever really been a need for the ‘hearted community to define or draw a line between.

What things can be a hearttype?

Anything! Generally, if you are currently experiencing it, the rule is that it can happen. You’re experiencing it, after all!

Hearttypes can be (but aren’t limited to): 

Animals, mythical creatures, plants, fungi

Oceans, forests, off-planet locations, buildings, fictional locations, other natural formations like rivers and mountains

People, real or fictional

Emotions, colours, aesthetics, sounds, seasons, songs

Objects, robots, machines, artworks

Book series, tv shows, movies, games

Do otherhearted people shift?

Otherhearted people absolutely can experience shifts, as can any other alterhuman and even non-alterhumans. Shifting isn’t a thing exclusive to otherkin/therians.

Is this different from a special interest or hyperfixation?

For some people, yes! We’ve seen many people (including ourselves) who experience these things with a lot of overlap. For others, no–they’re distinct things even if there might be some similarities.

Hearttypes can be the same thing as your special interest/hyperfixation, or they might not be. Sometimes hearttypes form spins/hyperfixes and sometimes it’s the other way around! It’s really up to the individual to decide whether these things are hearttypes or not–there’s no set default for this.

Further Reading:

Alterhuman Archive’s Otherhearted Section: https://www.zotero.org/groups/4956615/altarchive/collections/R9URWR67 A compilation of heartedness related writings from across the community.

Otherhearted-Culture-Is: https://otherhearted-culture-is.tumblr.com/ A culture-is blog for otherhearteds that’s turned into more of a general purpose otherheartedness blog.